Yasuhide Kobayashi, Sony Japan studio VP and The Last Guardian development boss, has stated that Japanese developers must focus their efforts on capturing the hearts of Western gamers or suffer an untimely death.
"There are so many issues we have to solve, and the biggest challenge is that the market in Japan is shrinking -- they key is gaining success in the US and Europe," he explains. "At the time of the original PlayStation the Japanese market was one third of the global market, and production costs weren’t that high -- so we were able to generate profit from that market alone.
"But now we’re in the era of the PlayStation 3, and the Japanese market is only one fifth of the global market -- when it comes to production costs, those are swelling, so it means that unless we gain success in the overseas market our studio will go bankrupt. It’s a crisis we recognize."
According to Kobayashi, The Last Guardian was named specifically to appeal to Western and European consumers. Surely they should have called it Guardian of War: Blood Sex if they wanted to do that.
Is the Japanese market really shrinking, or is the global market getting bigger, merely making Japan look small? There is always a lot of doom and gloom surrounding the Japanese game industry, but I sometimes wonder if the panic is overblown Even if it is, however, Kobayashi is certainly right to suggest that games need global appeal these days. The industry is a worldwide thing now, and simply making Japanese games for Japanese people isn't how you do good business.
Contest:
11:20 AM on 09.17.2009
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Capcom and Square Enix have embraced this.
There are a bunch of xenophobic d*icks who hate *almost* all that is Japanese. IE JRPGS and *all* anime.
As for naming the game based on western audiences, why? So long as its a decent name that can be translated there should be no need to worry japan has always paniced about giving americans something to like but then i guess they did drop two atomic bombs on them which would explain the desperation maybe as the EU has been more than fine with original character name translations and box art for decades. [examples, golden sun and the final fantasy game box arts.]
@Rockvillian
They're not talking about changing everything. Just look at Sonic the Hedgehog back then he was great. He was changed to be appropriate to both the east and west and it worked out great.
That is not to say that it needs watering- or dumbing-down, just that it needs universal appeal to do so, and that can be tough when not relying on cheap, one trick pony trump cards - see: boobs.
Almost every other major industry spend billions of combined dollars trying to figure out how to best make/package/sell/market/etc their product in foreign countries/cultures. Video games are still behind in this respect.
I believe what happened is as both gaming cultures grew but the West grew much faster, I think the last point in which you could say they were both sort of standing at the same pace was around the PSX era in the early-mid 90s.
It's not as if Western gaming was tiny compared to Japanese gaming in the "old days" it's just they were both so fairly isolated that as they grew they started coming into contact with each other more frequently.
I don't see it as doom and gloom but as a rationality that has yielded some good already. Etrian Odyssey is a good example of this as the game is a meshing of Japanese gaming style with the classical western RPG gameplay (Wizardry, Might & Magic, Bard's Tale, etc). This has also already cut out a lot of the bloat of JRPGs in this iteration of gaming.
I agree on the initial success for Sonic, but it set in motion a philosophy that didn't work out too well for Sonic in the later years...
Actually the Wizardry series did utterly fantastic over in Japan so much so that many Japanese game developers just use the name even if their game has only tenuous at best references to the worlds of Guardia and Dominus that the original 8 game series takes place within.
What Japanese publishers need to do is look at getting more of their games published outside of Japan. There have been a long list of games released in Japan that have never seen the light of day in the Western markets in a localized form, so far they've only imported in the original Japanese format. If Japan really wants to grab a larger share of game sales, they need to start localizing more games for Western countries.
I believe he was referring to the classic Sonic games, where the 'tude involved him simpli wagging a finger and toe-tapping when impatient. Those are fairly universal signals. However, once the character's degrees/ranges of emotional responses increased, his likability went towards the inverse. That's why I believe that subtle or implied emotional showings generate far more emotional response from the player, see: Ico -which is comforting, given that Ico Team is behind The Last Guardian.
All kidding aside, I think simply copying what the West does will fail. They need to make their own games better.
no offense to FPS fans but going in that same direction, the action oriented and explosions and stuff doesnt really appeal to me, i like to retain a certain artistic and serenity side to it, which Ico and SotC had..
im pretty sure if they maybe change the title to ""the last guardian of anal threesome"" staring Ron Jeremy then yeah that may appeal to most western taste lols jokes
Some, like myself, will buy it based solely on its pedigree.
Others who haven't been as lucky to play it (or as smart, in all seriousness) may need some convincing. That's all.
Appealing to the west, will take more than just their culture though. The japanese need to invest in more 3D technology and computer graphics engines too, especially now that the HD visual playing field of games, is leveling out. And if they can't build them themselves, I'm sure the likes of Capcom, would be willing to sell there MT Framework 2 engine, to those who need it.
The real key to all this is simple, learn from the competition and improve your own work. For many years, I feel that many japanese developers have worked in a shell space, where they allow themselves little or no stimulus from other foreign game product. This has hurt them greatly, possibly more than they will admit, and is also odd, because this only seems unique to the games industry. To hear of Suda 51, being a big fan of Criterions Burnout, was really great news, and I bet really made Criterion's day. And to also pleasingly hear of the Polyphony team, checking out Turn 10's Forza 3 at E3, was also encouraging and shows signs that will bring more promise and cooperation to the industry. Nothing wrong with some exchange with the competition at all, as us gamers end up getting better product.
And hey, didn't a certain Capcom employee recently make a visit to Bungie HQ. Very pleased to see this too.
I feel western games having been getting much better, over the last 15 years, while japanese games have improved at a very staggered pace. Western games in japan, are also getting better scores out there too.
Japanese game design also need some homework done too. Ask yourself, why is Gran Turismo the only really decent japanese driving game, yet in the west we have a good few of them? Because Polyphony ignore the competition and took to long on GT. Other driving games haven't done well, so Japan more or less gave up. This is just the driving genre, but other genres will give similar examples.
I agree that japanese games also need more advertising. If you can't afford to put together a video for TV, use the net, there plenty of free games podcasts, that can spread the word fast. 1up Listen Up is great for this.
As for japan, I also think it is indeed a case of their population ageing, with a low birth rates, not bringing in enough fresh young blood, into their society to be gamers. The japanese games market might not be there one day.
Appealing to westerners will gain you no ground. The audience is likely less sophisticated than the Japanese audience. If you begin creating things like we do- which is to say unapologetically postmodernist sequel tripe, you will find the same brick wall.
The fact that development costs are getting too high is unfortunate, which is why I believe the gaming industry will see a big flip into a more drastic separation of Hollywood style million dollar crap and indie development.
Attempting to appeal to everyone will only cause you to think inside the box.
Keep doing what you do- Team Ico is marvelous. My favorite, in fact.
But the future is going to be knowing your place, and they are just forms of entertainment. More important things demand our money.